Projection-based Embedded Discrete Fracture Model (pEDFM) on Corner-point Grid Geometry for Subsurface Flow and Geothermal Modeling

Abstract

We develop projection-based embedded discrete fracture model (pEDFM) on corner-point grids (CPG) for fluid flow and heat transfer in subsurface geological formations. The coupling between the flow and heat transfer is fully-implicit, to allow for stable simulations, specially in presence of highly contrasting fractures. We define independent CPG-based mesh for matrix rock and all 3D fractures, which allows for capturing geologically complex geometries. The connectivities between the non-neighbouring cells are described such that a consistent discrete representation of the embedded fractures are developed within the CPG geometry. Numerical rests are developed first to verify the CPG grid implementation compared with the Cartesian structured ones, and then to illustrate the applicability of the pEDFM for field-scale geologically complex reservoirs.Significance and Technical Contributions to the Knowledge Base of the Mathematics of Oil Recovery:• It develops a fully 3D projection-based embedded discrete fracture model (pEDFM).• It extends pEDFM method for corner-point grid geometry.

An Advanced Discrete Fracture Methodology for Fast, Robust, and Accurate Simulation of Energy Production From Complex Fracture Networks

“…A large class of methods is available for numerical modeling of fracture networks. It may consist of various approaches to the homogenization of fractures network, including Dual-Porosity (Barenblatt, 1960;Warren & Root, 1963) and various MINC models (Karimi-Fard et al, 2006;Pruess & Narasimhan, 1982), or different versions of Embedded Discrete Fracture Models (EDFM) starting from already classic approaches (Hajibeygi et al, 2011;Li & Lee, 2008) to projection-based technique (HosseiniMehr et al, 2020;Ţene et al, 2017). Some hybrid versions combining EDFM with homogenized fractured networks at two different scales also exist (Li & Voskov, 2021).Another class of model is Discrete Fracture Model (DFM), where fracture segments are described as a lower-dimensional object on the mesh.…”

An Advanced Discrete Fracture Methodology for Fast, Robust, and Accurate Simulation of Energy Production from Complex Fracture Networks

“…A large class of methods is available for numerical modeling of fracture networks. It may consist of various approaches to the homogenization of fractures network, including Dual-Porosity (Barenblatt, 1960;Warren & Root, 1963) and various MINC models (Karimi-Fard et al, 2006;Pruess & Narasimhan, 1982), or different versions of Embedded Discrete Fracture Models (EDFM) starting from already classic approaches (Hajibeygi et al, 2011;Li & Lee, 2008) to projection-based technique (HosseiniMehr et al, 2020;Ţene et al, 2017). Some hybrid versions combining EDFM with homogenized fractured networks at two different scales also exist (Li & Voskov, 2021).…”